D.C. and streetcar foes need to get on the same track
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/12/AR2010041204082.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/12/AR2010041204082.html)
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
OFFICIALS in the District are in an understandable hurry to get streetcars rolling again in the nation's capital. Streetcars could spur economic development as they make it easier for residents to move among neighborhoods. Perhaps, though, officials should have slowed down long enough to realize the obstacles posed by a 121-year-old federal law. A reasonable compromise must be found so this important transportation initiative can proceed.
The District has laid track and purchased cars for a planned 37-mile network connecting neighborhoods and complementing existing transit options. But as The Post's Lisa Rein reported, an 1889 federal law bans overhead electrification wires in the federal city. Preservation groups and the National Capital Planning Commission are insisting that the city's grand views are not to be tampered with -- even if the District already owns equipment that would require overhead lines.
The impasse is likely to come to a head over the initial segment of the system, a 1.6-mile stretch between Union Station and the H Street corridor that could open as early as 2012. The District thought it was being prudent when it laid the track as H Street was being rebuilt, but if some accommodation isn't reached, it could have tracks that go nowhere.
Wire opponents are pushing technology that wouldn't require overhead lines, but city officials say it's costly and unreliable. No one wants to see the city's glorious views marred in any way, but city officials make a good case that aesthetics must be weighed against the advantages of better mass transit. D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) is right to argue that the degradation to the environment is worse from cars on the road than from some unobtrusive overhead wires.
The city has only itself to blame for not initiating a better discussion and planning process earlier. Still, it is right to have a sense of urgency in providing transportation alternatives as congestion grows. The two sides need to come to an understanding. A good place to start is with the reasonable suggestion by Gabe Klein, the city's transportation chief, to use a hybrid system that allows overhead wires in some areas but still respects the city's capital views.
You can barely see those things in an urban environment. Here are a few shots I took in New Orleans last week.
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Learning-From/New-Orleans-April-2010/P1330502/832373412_322RC-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Learning-From/New-Orleans-April-2010/P1330905/832380086_ECu8Q-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Learning-From/New-Orleans-April-2010/P1340031/832382097_d9ohB-M.jpg)
Here's a follow-up
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/15/AR2010041506320.html
Could have told them that! HA! HA! HA! If I recall the ordiance is not city wide, or district wide, rather it is limited to the Capitol and Monument Districts. The original DC Cars had trolley poles and some private right of way, with overhead wires, as well as some street trackage with overhead wires. The Capitol/Monument area was served by the SAME cars with a upside down trolley. This trolley pole extended from under the center of the car deep into a slot in the center of the street that carried the live 600 volt DC power.
(http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bQsuhPJduqQ/S9Cpk8FFBvI/AAAAAAAACPk/j-lph4YPtk0/s800/DC%20Transit%203rd%20Rail.jpg)
WASHINGTON DC CAR USING 3RD "Rail" pickup.
(http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bQsuhPJduqQ/S6rqQpfQOAI/AAAAAAAACLw/OgKDPZVDNwg/s800/LOS%20ANGELES%20RAILROAD.jpg)
LOS ANGELES CAR USING OVERHEAD TROLLEY pickup
(http://railforthevalley.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/electro-on-the-3rd-rail.jpg)
Interurban train in Chicago shown operating with 3Rd rail pickup boots extended, the 3Rd Rail is easily seen slightly elevated and running alongside all of the tracks. Like other equipment these "Electro-Liner" trains could use trolley poles too. When delivered these trains covered the distance at 110 MPH, but crew members complained that the train reached crossings before the gates were all the way down. So the train was restricted to slow orders... 90 MPH.
(http://www.railwaypreservation.com/vintagetrolley/Grove_trolley_side_view_sm.JPG)
Another way to skin this cat is battery electric with induction charging buried in the streets at streetcar stops.
How much will this cost Washington? Really? Not much, like any kid who has taken apart a toy car learns, the motor will work as designed no matter how you get the wires to the proper poles. So I doubt we'll get them unless someone up there has a brain fart.
Damn! This leaves me still wondering what is going to happen with the neighborhood children when some bad little boy sticks a metal rod down that slot? How do you like your kids? Well done or over easy?
OCKLAWAHA
When the D. C. cars reached the District boundary for those lines that extended into Maryland (the Cabin John line, for one) there was a pit under the tracks with a man waiting for the car. The cars were equipped with a device called a plow (or plough for our Anglophiles) that ran along the conductors in the slot. I believe that the pick-up and return were both in the conduit- not sure. It was a matter of seconds for the pitman to detach the plow from outward bound cars, and re-attach it for inward cars. It was the 1889 ordinance that forced the use of cable cars in the District. A fire in the Georgetown powerhouse around 1900 lead to Capital Traction electrifying their cable lines. As with cable, the need for the underground conduit and the slot for access was a major cost for building this style of system, and a maintenance headache as well. You can see a Washington PCC in the opening of "Advise and Consent" which was filmed before the streetcar system was abandoned in 1963.
Manhattan was the only other place in the US that banned overhead wires. Cable lines were built there also, and one of the last horsecars in the country ran in lower Manhattan until 1914 because it was not economical to electrify the short, low-traffic line. (I think it ran on DeBrosses Street.) The conduit lines ran into The Bronx because that area was part of Manhattan prior to the creation of Greater New York in 1898 and not separated as the borough until after 1900. Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island (Borough of Richmond) had no such limitation.
As for Chicago: I remember riding the Evanston Express from the Loop in the 1970s, and seeing the trainmen standing between the cars and raising the poles up to the trolley wire at Howard Avenue, the non-rush hour terminus on the Evanston line. Most of the cars were the old 2000 series 1920-era steel cars that had poles, which prolonged their use by the CTA until the third rail was extended north to Wilmette.
The DC DOT had a press conference today to show off the streetcars:
http://dcist.com/2010/05/click_click_dc_shows_off_its_modern.php?
(http://dcist.com/attachments/dcist_sommer/2010_0505_streetcar6.jpg)
Pretty Nice, certainly isn't what you think of when you think streetcar, but I would still ride them anyways.
QuoteWASHINGTON -- It's hard to pass up something that's free, right? Well, that may be part of the thinking behind the D.C. Department of Transportation's new streetcar system.
Once the streetcars get rolling, some riders may actually be able to get on and off at their leisure, knowing that they will not have to pay a dime, WTOP has learned.
"It is certainly possible that in certain areas of the city it would be free," DDOT Director Gabe Klein tells WTOP.
"And we like that, because the point of this is to stimulate growth and move people between neighborhoods. So we are going to look at a structure where people feel comfortable hopping on and off, maybe many times in an hour."
D.C. officials have closely studied the streetcar system in Portland, Ore. as a model for what to do in the nation's capital. In Portland, riders who take trips in the "fareless square" do not have to pay for trips.
"In the downtown area, they make it free," says Klein. "People literally hop on and hop off, sometimes at every stop. It's great because it feels more like a people mover, than it does a bus or a streetcar."
Keeping the cost low would encourage people to use the streetcars.
"We could also design something where you pay once per day, or it could just be inexpensive -- it could just be a dollar," says Klein. "So we will structure it in such a way that people feel very comfortable using it at will, anytime they need it."
http://wtop.com/?nid=30&sid=1950931
These guys are thinking outside of the box..........what do we get -BRT! Gee......gotta love JTA and the rest of the bufoons running things!
have you noticed that we (including JTA) are looking at streetcars?
Don't think DC is doing this overnight...it has been atlked about for over a decade....Jax. is moving now...unfortunately we're about a decade behind many other places.
A Bay Street Streetcar line would be SWEET! At least JTA is thinking about it.
It took a swift kick in the rear end but things are progressing.
tufsu..........I disagree! More like 50 years behind the power curve and yes there maybe something beginning to develope but I have to see it, touch it and smell before I would say "Yup"!
CS...the United States may have lost 50 years in the transit world (started dying in the 1930s, started coming back in the 1980s)....but Jax. is only about 10 years behind comparable areas (Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Tampa, Phoenix, etc.).
and now business owners may have to pay for a portion of the streetcar line...I can just imagine how that discussion would go here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/14/AR2010051405073.html
They are being asked to pay around $400 million, which is a lot. But by funding the line, they could make millions more, due to increased access to their businesses.